Friday, June 12, 2015

Papers on Documentation and Archiving of Virtual Creations by Dennis Moser

Dennis Moser is a rare book librarian and archivist at the Rasmuson Library, University of Alaska, Fairbanks. He also is a musician who has performed live concerts in the Second Life virtual world for many years as avatar Aldomanutio Abruzzo. His experience with virtual reality and its transient nature informs his academic writing. Two recent papers of his that you now can download from academia.edu explore the issues and history related to documenting and archiving new media works. More of his papers on archival preservation of virtual material are available for download here.

Understanding the Impact of the “New Aesthetics” and “New Media” Works on Future Curatorial Resource Responsibilities for Research Collections [originally published in Art Documentation: Journal of the Art Libraries Society of North America, September, 2013]

‘Memories are Just Dead Men Makin’ Trouble:’ Digital Objects, Digital Memory, Digital History [Chapter excerpted from A Digital Janus: Looking Forward, Looking Back, edited by Dennis Moser and Susan Dun. Inter-Disciplinary Press, 2014.     ISBN: 978-1-84888-305-5]





Sunday, February 5, 2012

Bronzeville Etudes & Riffs Moves from Second Life® to Unity3 Platform

In a major expansion of concept, artist Philip Mallory Jones has moved the development of Bronzeville Etudes &: Riffs onto the Unity 3 game development platform, which will make it available on web browsers and on portable devices that use the iOS and Android operating syatems. He now calls this work an immersive graphic novel. Open it and you step into the Chicago South Side and experience life there as a Black American from the turn of the 20th century to the 1950s. 


See the Sept. 30 2011 post for background, or visit The ArtWorld Market Report website.

Friday, September 30, 2011

BRONZEVILLE Etudes & Riffs


Jacque Quijote is the avatar of artist Philip Mallory Jones in the Second Life® virtual world. We selected the work of Jacque Quijote "In the Sweet Bye & Bye" as a "Pick of the Week" in May, 2007, and featured this work in our 2007 print monograph, The Second Life® Art World
His current work-in-progress advances the development of narrative immersive space, and is a paradigm of the artistic exploration of virtual technology. Click on the image to the right and read all about it.  Then immerse yourself in it. 
Mr. Jones has also written an extensive illustrated essay on his development of immersive technology art, beginning with his first Heathkit quartz crystal radio receiver as a youth in the 1950s. It is required reading for anyone interested in the creative process.
The essay, "First Life to Second Life: Notes on the Design and Development of a Synthetic World Installation, In The Sweet Bye & Bye: An Immersive Memoir:" can be read online.  Philip Mallory Jones  was Artist in Residence at Ohio University's Aesthetic Technologies Lab when he created In The Sweet Bye & Bye.
 
In April, 2011 he created a series of Mind Maps that visualize his current research and development for Bronzeville Etudes & Riffs. There are two kinds, one charts the narrative threads and navigation paths, the other is an accurate street map (in four parts) 1925-1955.

Saturday, February 13, 2010

First Life to Second Life

 Review:
       First Life to Second Life
        by Philip Mallory Jones
       
(aka SL Jacque Quijote)

 

We selected the work of Jacque Quijote "In the Sweet Bye & Bye" as a "Pick of the Week" in May, 2007, and featured this work in our 2007 print monograph, The Second Life® Art World. Now Mr. Jones has written an extensive illustrated essay on his development of immersive technology art, beginning with his first Heathkit quartz crystal radio receiver as a youth in the 1950s. It is required reading for anyone interested in the creative process.
The essay, "First Life to Second Life: Notes on the Design and Development of a Synthetic World Installation, In The Sweet Bye & Bye: An Immersive Memoir:" can be read online at the website of Ohio University's Aesthetic Technologies Lab, where Philip Mallory Jones  is Artist in Residence.

Friday, October 9, 2009

THE IMAGINE CHALLENGE

and THE FLAGSHIP CHALLENGE
October, 2009—August 2010
University of Western Australia


Competition entries on view at UWA

Jayjay Zifanwe, quadrapop Lane, and the University of Western Australia (UWA) team welcome visitors to the announcement of the September Monthly Winners of the UWA 3D Art & Design Challenge (IMAGINE & FLAGSHIP competitions). This will be held at 5am SLT, October 11, 2009 at the Art & Design Platform on WASP Land. If that's out of your time zone or you are reading this at a later date, keep reading!

The challenges will run monthly through August 2010. Read on for how to enter the next challenge, or click here to teleport to their Second Life location.

There are 2 competitions running simultaneously, the IMAGINE challenge and the FLAGSHIP challenge. There are monthly prizes available separately for both, and the top 2 each month will go into the pool for the Grand Prize (which will have an expanded judging panel). You can enter as many times as you like or for any month that you choose. For the Imagine challenge there will also be a monthly prize for best non-scripted entry

THE IMAGINE CHALLENGE

In describing virtual worlds, it is often said, 'we are truly limited by only the imagination', and and that is the theme of this art challenge. The limits are the imagination. Create something that will take our breath away. Any form, any shape, any influence, any medium. Of this world, or the next! (size 100 prim)

Prizes will be offered to winners & runners-up every month till the 31st of August 2010. Grand Prize to be awarded at the end. Monthly winners & runners up to be displayed in the Second Life installation of the Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery, on the grounds of the University of Western Australia (UWA - this island). All winners COULD also be part of a real life (RL) exhibition of digital interactive art at the University of Western Australia in 2010.

IMAGINE PRIZES
Monthly Prize 3,500L (1st) 500L (2nd)
500L (Best non-Scripted entry)
Grand Prize 50,000L (1st) 10,000 (2nd) 


THE FLAGSHIP CHALLENGE
Design the UWA Cultural Precinct Flagship Building

Design a building that captures the essence of creative engagement, which could possibly be built.The University of Western Australia plans to build such a building in real life. It is to be called FUTURElab. FUTURElab will provide insights into the world we are shaping by putting a microscope on the research undertaken across the University. It will provide a showcase for the work of  SymbioticA for the architects and designers from UWA’s Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Visual Arts who are exploring new possibilities for themselves and their communities and for those working with new and emerging technologies to shape our future. FUTURElab will incorporate a black box performance/screening environment, a science/art gallery and teaching and presentation space for a range of activities across campus. It will also provide a hub for the Creative Industries Innovation Centre (CIIC), of which UWA is a partner.


Prizes offered to winners & runners-up every month till the 31st of August 2010. Grand Prize to be awarded at the end. The winning entry, will be given a permanent location on the grounds of the SL grounds of the University of Western Australia. The winning entry may be considered as a possible baseline design for one of the actual buildings that will be built at the RL location of the expanding Cultural Precinct of the University of Western Australia. The creator of the building will be contacted to consult on how to turn the Second Life design, into reality.

FLAGSHIP PRIZES
Monthly Prize 3,500L (1st) 500L (2nd)
Grand Prize 50,000L (1st) 10,000 (2nd)


THE SECOND LIFE® IMAGINE FESTIVAL

October 9—15, 2009
 
Imagine Festival features many programs 
UTSA Art Space Full-Sim Exhibition 
click here for a schedule of events

 
Gamma Infinity created this activated entrance sculpture

 
The Imagine Festival includes an ambitious program of music, poetry, drama, and interactive experiences. It launches at Four Bridges—a new Imagine build by AuraKyo Insoo. It spans 10 sims, and coincides with the opening of the Imagine Peace Tower commissioned by Yoko Ono. The Tower will be unveiled and officially opened on Imagine Peace Island at 3:30pm SLT, Friday 9 October.

Also featured in this year's festival is a major build offered by UTSA (University of Texas at San Antonio). The UTSA's newly developed Art Space consists of a full-sim exploration of the seasons that incorporates the artistic impressions of a diverse group representing of  artists. Each of these artists have made contributions to one or more of the seasons that speak to the future of weather in a unique way.

Other creative events to be found in the Festival are; Africa Live, Tales and Legends of Africa, CHAMBER of our HEART, Undersea Mermaid Poetry, Pentagon of Peace by Netroots Nation, and CARP (Cybernetic Arts Research Project).

According to their Press Release, The Imagine Network works for a better world, with a focus on human rights, as well as social and environmental justice for all. They aim to identify the root causes of the larger toxic global problems facing us in order to help find solutions, and to help people act together in cooperation toward that goal.

ArtWorld Market was given an advance tour of the UTSA installation on October 8 by Gary Kohime, IMAGINE@UTSA Director. There are works by established SL artists like Alizarin Goldflake and Artistide Despres, as well as emerging artists.



Seasonal art from Alizarin Goldflake
a view from inside her activated sculpture "Immersive Art_Halloween Haloes."




Sun's Birth" by Ub Yifu reminds us of the influence of early Starax sculptures.

Saturday, August 8, 2009

Playing from the Grave

5th Annual Colloquium on the Law of Futuristic Persons

The above-titled conference will be held in the Second Life® virtual world on December 10, 2009. It is organized by Terasem Movement, Inc. a not-for-profit organization that also publishes two Terasem Journals. The focus is on the rights of people who will be revived from biostasis—cryogenic preservation of legally (but not irreversibly) dead or near-dead people waiting for a cure, and cyberstasis—people whose consciousness is preserved digitally.

Does immersion in virtual reality involve similar legal issues? As the technology of personality archiving gets closer, VR citizens may opt to transition from DNA to silicon existence. The legal/ethical issues they are dealing with might make you think of Arthur C. Clarke or Isaac Asimov, but relevance is relative, in light of current concerns about AI and FMRI.

For example, one of the papers in the current issue of The Journal of Personal Cyberconsciousness is "Pros and Cons of Corporate Personhood for Transbemans" by Dr. Martine Rothblatt: "Dr. Rothblatt imposes the legal notions of corporate personhood upon transbemans or futuristic persons, specifically those who transition from flesh-ware to software, and may lack the traditional DNA based biological substrate."

There are over 20 issues of the above journal and their Journal of Geoethical Nanotechnology, with articles by prominent scientists, lawyers, psychologists, etc. in the Terasem online archive.

If you would like to submit a paper for the conference, or have further interest in this, get in touch with the editor of the Journals, Loraine J. Rhodes, either through the Contact link on their website or by IM in SL to Lori Darling.